


Close Range

by Mertiya



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, In which Orson Krennic just does not get it, It's about their relationship however you choose to interpret that, Not really shippy but shippy if you squint, Orson probably doesn't know anymore than you do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 14:44:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9329726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: Orson Krennic dies.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rastaban](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rastaban/gifts).



> Hey so you know how I haven't posted an angry "this is totally Rastaban's fault" note on one of my fics in a while? THIS IS TOTALLY HER FAULT. Also, thanks to her for the title, which I was having issues with.
> 
> Edit: Thanks to Lyrtil, a translation into Italian is available here: http://www.efpfanfic.net/viewstory.php?sid=3666965

            It’s strange how her eyes stop him in his tracks. Galen’s eyes in the girl’s face, staring at him accusingly. When they were younger, that was always Galen’s last resort—those eyes. They used to make him soften; now they only make him savage, and he wonders when that changed.

            Perhaps it’s that he knows this is his last chance. He still holds this project, but he feels it spinning away from him, and he’s lost. Sudden pain tearing through his shoulder and his chest has him on his knees, and then, strangely, there’s metal beneath his cheek. _Blaster shot, close range_ , someone tells him in Galen’s voice, but when he blinks his eyes there’s no one there, just the blue sky on the horizon.

            Besides, Galen can’t be there. Galen is dead. He watched him die. After Orson came to Eadu, in that moment when he looked at Galen and he _knew_ , even before his former friend stepped forward, that the past thirteen years had been a lie. _Kill them all_ , he says, or he thinks he says, as he waves his hand. It’s not the engineers that he watches as the red blaster shots tear through their white-clad bodies— _so this is how they felt? Interesting_ —it’s Galen. It’s those damn hazel eyes that have been watching him since he was fifteen years old in the Futures Program on Brentaal.

            He’s watching the engineers fall again. He doesn’t _care_. He will _never_ care. When will Galen understand that he does not care for faceless men and women that he does not know? When will he stop expecting Orson to be something he’s not? There’s naked shock on Galen’s face, but no disappointment—something worse. Revulsion.

            _But we’re friends_ , Orson wants to say, with a kind of strange bewilderment he wasn’t expecting. The engineers fall, and fall again. When did Orson stop knowing Galen? Did Galen ever know Orson? He always looked right into him, as if he could see something inside Orson that Orson couldn’t even see. But now he’s looking _through_ him, and Orson wants to scream and shake him and yell, _I’m right here, it’s me, we’ve been friends since we were children!_

            Red blaster fire turns to blue skies and metal below. The boots of Galen’s daughter strike the ground behind him, falter, and turn back. Breathing feels like driving a knife through his lungs. Galen’s daughter, with Galen’s eyes, but Lyra’s hair and Lyra’s hatred.

            He thought things were back the way they had been. It wasn’t his damn fault Lyra died; she’d tried to kill him. What was he supposed to do? Let her? But it _hadn’t_ been the same, had it? Ever since, even working together on the plans for the Death Star, even as what should have been comrades, there was always that distance.

            When Orson was very young, someone he knew owned a pet bird. He doesn’t remember much about it, but he remembers squatting by the cage and spending an afternoon sketching it. It was more sedate in its movements than its wild counterparts, more cautious. When Galen was working on the Death Star, he thinks with sudden, strange clarity, that was what he was like. Muted movements, muted colors, everything muted. But what was the _cage_? He would have brought Lyra and Jyn, if they’d wanted to go. He’d have given Galen everything and yet—and yet—

            He sees grey in the sky beyond the clouds; grey that resolves itself into a vast circular behemoth. Damn. Well, that’s it then, isn’t it? He knows he should feel something more than irritation at dying, but at one level he’s almost been—waiting?

            Waiting since the impact that shivers through his bones when the rebels attack on Eadu, and he sees bright flame, cutting through the rainy night, and Galen’s face.   And Galen’s chest. Broken open, black edges burned around the raw bloody mess in the center. If he’s not dead yet, he’s dying. _And these are the people you sold me out for?_ _They just killed you! I wouldn’t have killed you, Galen, I would have—I would have—_

_I don’t know._

            Green blossoms in the sky above. His people are lifting him from the rain-slicked floor and urging him towards his ship. He doesn’t want to go. He’s frozen, something inside him gone cold and empty, because it’s all gone wrong. Galen’s eyes stare at him, no longer accusing, just blank. Just empty. He has a blurry feeling he tries to drag his arms away, to stumble back across the floor. A weird impulse to lie down on Galen’s body and just stay there. When he looks back again, the girl is doing just that.

            The green pulls him insistently back to the present. Fire in his lungs, fire in the clouds.

            _You’re going to die_. Galen’s voice again.

            He gropes for words. _I’m sorry_ seems insincere and _goodbye_ is moronic, because Galen is already dead. Finally, with an effort, he turns his chin up towards the flaming sky and whispers, “I told you it would be beautiful.”


End file.
